Van Aert takes a surprise victory in the prologue of the Belgium Tour
World cyclo-cross champion Wout Van Aert (Crelan-Vastgoedservice) took a surprise victory in the prologue of the Baloise Belgium Tour in Beveren.
Van Aert beat multiple time trial world champion Tony Martin (Etixx-QuickStep) by two seconds over the six-kilometre course. IAM Cycling’s Reto Hollenstein was third a further two seconds back.
Van Aert now has a 2-second lead over Martin and he has a solid chance to defend his jersey in tomorrow’s first stage which will bring the riders over 177.5km from Buggenhout to the well-known finish in Knokke-Heitst. There won’t be a single categorized climb on the menu on what will be a day in flat terrain. The stage ends with two laps of a 25km finishing circuit that has the traditional uphill finishing straight along the seafront where the sprinters are expected to battle it out.
Belgium Tour 2016 – prologue results (Beveren):
| 1 | Wout Van Aert (Crelan-Vastgoedservice) |
0:06:54 |
| 2 | Tony Martin (Etixx – Quick-Step) |
+02” |
| 3 | Reto Hollenstein (IAM) |
+04” |
| 4 | Yves Lampaert (Etixx – Quick-Step) |
+05” |
| 5 | Niki Terpstra (Etixx – Quick-Step) |
,, |
| 6 | Martin Elmiger (IAM) |
+06” |
| 7 | Lars Boom (Astana) |
+07” |
| 8 | David Boucher (Crelan-Vastgoedservice) |
+10” |
| 9 | Gijs Van Hoecke (Topsport Vlaanderen – Baloise) |
+11” |
| 10 | Sylvain Chavanel (Direct Energie) |
,, |
